Doesn't Matter
by DigiHasaSockAccount
Summary: He knows everything is wrong the instant Walt gives him the look. "Go to the basement." The tone leaves no room for argument, it never does. A few times, Jesse had tried. He doesn't anymore. WARNINGS: Corporal Punishment, Nonconsensual Spanking, abuse.


**-Doesn't Matter-**

**A Breaking Bad fanfic by Digi-Has-A-Sock-Account**

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><p><em>So uh... I actually only recently started watching Breaking Bad. I'm only up to mid-way through season 2, though I've been spoiled on a lot of it. I dunno, this just popped into my head and wouldn't leave. It's not really intended to be sexual or pairings-y, more... l dunno, I get a really fucked up fatherson vibe from Walt and Jesse, which I suppose is the point. My apologies if anything seems OOC or off, it's my first time writing for these characters. Please enjoy!_

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><p>He knows everything is wrong the instant Walt gives him the look.<p>

"Go to the basement." The tone leaves no room for argument, it never does. A few times, Jesse had tried. He doesn't anymore.

Instead he grits his teeth and turns to march down the stairs, pointedly lets each stomp of his sneakers reverberate loudly through the house with the heavy weight of the situation. He'd be in for that too. Whatever. It wasn't like it mattered.

The storage room at the back of the basement is cold, utilitarian and completely dark when he opens the door. Jesse roughly tugs at the string hanging from the ceiling, the motion a sharp jerk. The lone bulb on the ceiling flickers to to illuminate a few boxes, concrete walls, and the table. He slams the door behind him and steps right past the lone piece of furniture, focuses instead on the next part of the ritual.

Jesse kicks the shoes off his feet. His fingers shake with what he pretends is anger as he unbuttons his jeans. He lets them drop, then kicks them aside in a flourish of denim. He's supposed to fold them but fuck it, the rules were always changing. It wasn't like it mattered.

The cold bites at his skin, sends gooseflesh prickling along his too skinny legs. He tries to ignore it, but can't quite get far enough to remove his boxers. Fuck it. Jesse shuffles over to the corner, puts his hands behind his head, threads his fingers together over the tense knot of muscle at the base of his skull. He forces his breath out through his nostrils, harsh, hot, shaking from what he once again insists is anger. He glares on the couple of cobwebs in front of his nose, the dusty space where the concrete walls meet. He shifts his feet on the floor in an effort to keep warm, but he does not move his hands.

That rule never changed.

He wasn't sure how long he'd be waiting. Sometimes it was five minutes. Sometimes twenty. It didn't really matter, both ends of the spectrum seemed like an eternity, but this was still preferable to being dragged down the stairs instead. It was better, he thought maybe it was better, it was always so hard to tell.

The stairs creak as Walt descends, joining the thud of Jesse's heartbeat. A pause before the door, more heavily, dusty silence. Jesse curses under his breath. More waiting.

Finally, the door opens, then shuts. A click. Jesse doesn't know why Walt always locks the door. A stupid ritual— no one had come for any other ruckus at this house, why would they start now? More silence.

"You're not ready." An observation.

"It's fuckin' _cold_," Jesse snaps. He almost looks back over his shoulder, but he stops himself at the last second. "You can't possibly wanna see my shriveled dick that badly, you sick fuck."

"You're right about that. Crude, but right."

His partner gives a harsh laugh at that.

There's the sound of metal brushing against metal, the undoing of a buckle. He can imagine the belt sliding through belt loops, the way it folds into a cruel loop of heavy leather. The belt was old, bought in the time of the dinosaurs for all Jesse knew and just as heavy as the time implied.

"Assume the position. Let's get this over with."

Jesse feels himself bristle at the term— fuck, he hated that phrase. So clinical, so fuckin' absurd, so archaic.

"Jesse."

No. He couldn't do it. He wasn't supposed to fight, it was so stupid to fight, it didn't matter, fuck it didn't matter, he thought he'd finally been able to just fucking let it go but it didn't matter anyway, did it? The couple of times he _had _submitted had been just as bad, so why bother?

"_Jesse_."

He finally spins, hands clenched into fists, lips twisting into a snarl. "Why don't you just go fuck yourse—"

He doesn't quite finish the sentence. Walt's hand is on his arm and the other is on his back and Jesse doesn't even have time to marvel about how fucking weirdly strong the old man is before he's slamming face first into the cheap folding tabletop. Jesse lets out a string of curses even as the plastic sticks to his cheek, kicks out once, misses. He tries to thrash but his arms are caught beneath him and Walt's hand is pressing down on his neck now, holding him down.

There is a whistle on the air, a crack, and Jesse lets out a gasping, strangled grunt as the first blow lands across his ass. Jesus. He'd been beaten near to death more times than he could count, suffered broken ribs, black eyes, bruises on every inch of his too thin frame, but this always seemed different somehow. Maybe it was the humiliation. Maybe it was the way that belt brought him back to nine years old, back to five sharp smacks for stupid little kid shit like stealing cookies.

Another whistle, another crack, the burn spreading just below the first blow. Precise, exactly where it needed to be. He ground his teeth together as he was brought back to age ten, dwindling math grades, rants about his future. Another crack, lower, thinking back to age fourteen now, his first time caught with weed, unable to sit for a week.

The fourth blow breaks the pattern, hits on a diagonal angle right across the other three a sharp strike that's more of a slice than a slap. Jesse lets out something between a cry and an angry snarl. Fuck, no, this was nothing like those times. Mr. White had more fuckin' talent with that belt than his dad ever had.

He's never quite able to get the rhythm of it no matter how hard he tries. There were rules to how this went but nothing was ever quite the same— sometimes it would start slow and build, sometimes it was so fast and unending in its ferocity that Jesse could not tell where one blow ended and the next began. Sometimes Walt would leave endless intervals between strikes, waiting just long enough for Jesse to relax, to untense. Sometimes the blows came measured, deliberate, sometimes they were wild, completely unpredictable. All Jesse knew is that no spot would be left untouched, worked over with the kind of dedication he really should have come to expect from his partner.

When Mr. White felt there was a job to do, he fuckin' did it. Major difference between the two of them, as his partner had illustrated time and time again.

Another blow directly across the center of his blazing ass has him letting out a wheezing grunt, pressing himself into the table as if that somehow can save him. Three more in quick succession and his socked feet are scrambling for purchase against the dirty concrete floor, toes curling and clutching at the grime dirtying his white socks. It has to have been at least thirty licks by now, but he's lost count, fighting to keep from crying out again.

He always tells himself this time will be different, this time he'll be strong. Sometimes he wonders if maybe that's what Mr. White really wants— like his old man, maybe Mr. White just wanted Jesse to be tougher, stronger. He always tells himself this time will be different, he'll figure out the rules and he'll get it some twisted form of right. He won't scream, he won't cry.

He's always wrong.

Another crack, several more in quick succession on that tender spot where his ass meets his thighs. He can't help but squirm, body writhing against the table as if he could somehow avoid the snaking lash of the belt. Jesse's breath comes out in hot, burning puffs from his nose as he bites back another scream, chomps down on his lower lip. He's barely even aware of the temporary pause, only notices when Walt catches the edge of his boxers.

"M-Mr. White, no— I-It's cold, don't—" Jesse gasps out, lying directly through the sweat dripping off his brow. Too obvious.

"Liar." The crack of belt against bare skin seems so much louder, and this time Jesse can't hold back his howl of pain. He bucks against the table, causes the whole thing to shudder, the legs to scrape against the floor. Walt merely responds by pushing him further onto the table, tightening his grip as he lashes at Jesse's upper thighs.

"Auuuuuuggh! No, no, not there, stop, Mr. White stop, please!" Jesse howls. He jerks a hand free, waves it back in a desperate attempt to get it all to stop. He gets an arm awkwardly pinned to the small of his back and several more stripes his trouble. It's useless. He knows it's useless. It was useless the first day Walt had abruptly hauled him over the kitchen counter, the third time he'd dragged Jesse down the stairs and made this routine. It does not matter what Jesse says, what he wants, it had never mattered in this partnership and it certainly didn't matter here. This would go until Walt felt this was done, until Walt was satisfied, and Jesse had no way of knowing when that would be.

There is a pause, so sudden and so strange that it takes Jesse a full ten seconds to grasp it. When he does it's all heavy breathing, nothing but that sound in this room mixing with the dust motes under the shitty yellow lighting and the new scent of his sweat joining the stale lingerings of old. He wants to believe it's over.

He knows better.

"When I tell you to do something, Jesse, I expect you to do it." Great. The lecture is starting, and this is always the worst part. He hates this part more than anything, and he hates the whole fucking situation already. The part where Walt sound so normal, so much like his old teacher, like Jesse's back in detention after school and they're talking about his fucking future and lack of respect. Sometimes Jesse wondered if this had always been something Mr. White had wanted or if this was a recent development. Hard to believe that mild-mannered stick-in-the-mud would be grilling his ass years later.

The belt came down again, forcing Jesse's mind back to the present. "This is non-negotiable. This applies when we cook," Another whistle, another crack. "This applies to how you sell." Whistle, crack. Jesse bites down on his lip again, fights not to scream. "This applies to how we contact each other. This, especially, applies to when we are doing something like _this_." Two more. He'd bitten through his lip now, could taste coppery blood mixing with the salty sour tang of his sweat.

His mouth opens on reflex at that, and when another blow lands his tongue seizes the opportunity in spite of his better judgement. "B-but we're p-partners!" Jesse's cry is more of an agonized wail, but it does give a moment's pause of the belt. He lays there for a few seconds, gives a few rasping, wheezing gasps, licks the edge of his lips to taste salt and copper before he continues. "W-we're partners, aren't we, Mr. White? How the fuck are we supposed to be equal if you're pounding my ass, huh!? That's not a partnership, t-that's— F-FUCK!"

The belt is back, this time landing just above his knees. Too low. Way too low. Jesse jerks hard against the table, feels Walt readjust the iron grip on the wrist at his back. "Hold still, I don't want to cause any permenant damage," Walt murmurs before the lecture continues. "Apparently you don't have a very strong grasp on this partnership, Jesse. You never were that great at paying attention." Walt's voice still has that calm quality to it, the same voice he'd used for Chemistry class even with that hint of an edge. "Yes, we're partners. I cook, you provide the street know-how. But your street know-how," A series of lashes against his thighs, warming Jesse's legs to the same blistering heat as his ass. "Has only nearly gotten us killed. Remember that, dumbass? I'm the one who's saved our skin every time, me! This may be a partnership, but it's always been unequal, and that's on you, kid."

"T-that's not— auuuuugghh, christ, stop, stop-stop-stop!" Jesse jerked from another blow, got a second hand free, simply reached forward to grasp for the edge of the table. He has arguments, he knows he has arguments, but _Goddamn _was it hard to argue with those white-hot lines being carved into him.

"No, I will not, Jesse, because you need to hear this," Walt says as he moves the belt back to his ass. Jesse thought for sure a point would come where it would hurt so much he'd stop feeling blows, but it never did. The break had only made him more sensitive to the lashes, and well, that was right on fucking-time wasn't it? "This partnership is _defined _by the fact that you are a fuck-up. You were a fuck-up from the moment you entered my classroom, you were a fuck-up the day I saw you on the run, you have been a fuck-up every day of your life. You're damn right that this partnership is unequal, but it's unequal to _me_, not to you. You're barely holding up your end of the deal and every damn day I'm stuck pulling you above your own shit."

Those words hurt more than the belt ever could, and that was saying a lot. Jesse grasped at the table's edge, hunched forward as if to press himself into it, lets out a single, agonized wail muffled by the sweat and blood-soaked tabletop. "Nooooo, n-no, nonono, God, stop, please stop," He rasps out, and he's not sure if he's referring to Walt's lecture or the belt anymore.

"I am the reason you are anything at all, Jesse Pinkman," Walt's voice is the closest to a growl that Jesse has ever heard from him. "Without me, you are nothing. Without me, you're a barely functioning, self-destructive junkie. I am the one who made you, who made _us_, not you."

The first tears come unbidden, liquid burning the corners of his eyes. Jesse had so many arguments, so many things he could have said, but nothing ever seemed big enough to fight that all-encompassing truth. He squeezes his eyes shut, fights to keep them at bay. He had to fight. Giving in never helped— once or twice he'd submitted entirely to this, had even felt he'd deserved it, had gone to the basement without a word and with a sort of dumb, quiet reverence that quickly turned to broken sobs. There had been no reward, no lessening in the punishment, and those words had still come. He was a fuck-up no matter what he did.

It really did seem that way. Jesse often felt he had no way of knowing what would set Walt off, it seemed to change by the day. Sometimes he was too loud, too quiet, too lazy, too reckless, too messy. It changed every day and it always ended with him here, squirming against the damn table while the over-arcing theme of his whole damn life washed over him like the blows. Jesse had a suspicion it has more to do with Walt wanting stress relief, knew for damn sure that Walt enjoyed it even when the bastard said he didn't, but the few time Jesse had voiced this observation Walt had every argument to turn it back on him.

There is no winning here. It doesn't matter.

"I am the one who saw something in you. I am the only one who ever has." _Fuck_. There were the tears. Walt always seemed to know just what to say, exactly what to do to get them to start. Jesse tries to quiet his sobs, glares at the concrete wall, sucks in hot, hitching breaths, but the screams of pain-turned-sobs come anyway as the words wash over him. "Everyone else looks at you and sees a barely functioning drugged up loser— but not me. I can make something out of you, and all you have to do is listen. If I give you a problem, all you have to do is solve it. Not so hard, is it? I've never given you anything you couldn't solve, have I?"

"N-no… no," Jesse's voice is cracking, he finds himself sniffling in spite of himself. Mucus mixes with tears, sweat and blood on the table, the disgusting mess a fitting allegory for anything he'd ever managed to produce on his own.

"No, I have not," Walt agrees, and Jesse can hear the grim smile in his voice. The belt pauses, rests beside him on the table. His partner gives a sob of relief, presses his sweat-soaked forehead into the plastic as the words wash over him. "I have never given you anything you couldn't solve, and I have given you the tools to do so every time. And that, Jesse," The belt came down again. Jesse let out a renewed, broken howl, back arcing as he screamed into the tiny room. "Is why you need to do what I say."

Jesse lets out a keening wail as the belt descends with a ferocity that does not match the plain, calm rhythm of Walt's words. "When I tell you to do something, you do it. You do not argue, you do not sulk like a fucking child, you do not whine. When I send you down here you do not _stomp_," The blows moved to that sit spot again, one hit diagonally and Jesse was sure he felt the skin break. "You do not resist me. When I tell you to be ready, you will be _ready_, and when I tell you to assume position, you will assume position. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes!" Jesse screams, kicking his legs wildly like the Goddamn child Walt had just demanded he not be. "Yes Mr. White, yes sir, yesyeysyes whatever you say, yes, I'll do it, just stop, _pleasepleaseplease_ stop!" He thrashes against the table, is amazed it holds up as he squirms and writhes.

Again Walt pauses. Jesse let out another hiccuping sob, hopeful. Maybe this was it, maybe Walt would be satisfied. He can felt hot blood running down his legs, feels spots throbbing with a deep pain that he knows damn well will become bruises— hell, his entire damn ass was gonna be black and blue at this rate. Maybe that was it, maybe blood was what Walt wanted, maybe now—

"We're almost done. This is for all the noise and not being ready." Walt says. At these words, Jesse's sobs turn into a shattered whine that sounds more like a wounded animal than a person. His trapped hand clenches into a fist as he lets out several whimpered pleas, insistences that he can't take anymore. Walt simply keeps hold of his wrist, keeps it twisted at that awful angle. "I will never give you anything you cannot take, Jesse."

Jesse begged to differ. It always seemed far beyond what anyone should be expected to handle.

"You know that."

"Y-yes sir." He didn't.

The belt presses against his ass again. It feels slick, warm, probably wet with his blood. Jesse felt a shudder from the base of his spine upwards. "Count them."

Whistle, crack, this one at the very top of his ass. "O-one."

Whistle, crack. Right below it, two perfect lines. "Two," Jesse whispers.

Whistle, crack. At the center now, the sound is wet and heavy as it lands on top of several slices in his skin. "Th-three," Jesse's breath hitches.

Whistle, crack, below that. Jesse's back arches. "F-Four!" He cries.

Whistle, crack. Whistle, crack. "Five, s-six, please!"

Crack, crack, crack, crack! "Seven-eight-nine-teeeeeen!" Jesse screams, tries to look back at his partner."M-Mr. White, please, please, I ca—"

Whistle, crack! "Eleven, eleven, f-fuck, twelve, whatever!"

"Don't be impatient," Walt grunts, putting two down on his thighs in quick succession. "That's twelve plus one extra."

"T-twelve," Jesse whimpers in agreement as he collapsed against the table. He simply lays there as the blows continued the count coming out in breath-y, near incoherent whispers. God he hurt. Everything throbbed. His muscles feel nonexistent, putty, even his tongue felt too tired to form words. He simply couldn't do it anymore.

Jesse felt his arm muscles loosen, his eyelids fluttered. He thought that would be it, but Walt's hand released his wrist and instead went to the back of his head, held him steady with a gentleness that did not match the continued whistle and crack.

The lashes continue, going all the way to twenty. Finally, _finally _it stopped. The belt was set down neatly on the table, the bloodied buckle clinking against itself as it rests by Jesse's head. Jesse does not notice, instead feels his knees buckle as he slides bonelessly from the table to the concrete floor.

Walt catches him. The two drop to the ground and Jesse is pressed against Walt's shirt now, whimpering, his entire world spinning even as he continues to sob. There are warm hands rubbing soothing circles on his back, kneading at that tense spot at the base of his neck. "Shhh, shhh, shhhhhhh, you did good. You're okay, son, you're okay." They're kind words, a father's words, words that Jesse had not heard in so long and words he craved more than anything in the world.

Some part of him knows it's wrong, it's so very wrong, and the blood soaking his thighs is a reminder, but with each kind approving word it's easy to forget. The whole situation is so fucked up and the worst part about it is how much he loves this part, how this is the only time where he ever really gets this approval. Goddamnit.

He absently feels his shirt being moved up, hears Walt give a disapproving sigh. "You're going to have a lot of bruises." Fucker. It's your fault.

"Come on," It's been several minutes now and Jesse's sobs are quieting. "Let's get you cleaned up— we don't want those cuts infected, do we?" Jesse does not resist when Walt pulls him to his feet, simply leans against him because he does not have the strength to walk but at least he'll try.

There is a click as Walt unlocks the door, another as he tugs the light off. The two of them make their way into the main room, Jesse blinks blearily at the afternoon sunlight filtering in from the tiny windows "I think that's enough for the day. We're getting you cleaned up and I'm going home. You're going to bed and you're going to stay there. Tomorrow I will see you in the lab and we won't speak of this again. Understood?"

Jesse lets out a shuddering breath as the two make their way up the stairs. There were so many arguments here— it was like three in the afternoon, what did Walt care what he did with his free time, why, why why. Of course, he voices none of them.

"Yes sir, Mr. White."

It doesn't matter anyway.


End file.
